Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Environments

Leader characteristics or leadership outcomes?

Most leadership studies have highlighted the personal characteristics, personality traits, behaviors, and the perceived effectiveness of leaders as evaluated by subordinates or supervisors. Followers have been typically viewed as recipients or mediators of the leader's influence and as the agents for achievement of the leader's vision and objectives. Despite the obvious fact that leaders need followers to reach group goals, much of the previous writing about leadership is leader-centric. A useful summary of leadership criteria based on a review of the literature appears in Table 2.1.⁷

TABLE 2.1 Taxonomy of leadership criteria

Relatively few studies (about 15 percent of the total) have examined the relationship between leaders and group outcomes. Even when they consider leaders and group outcomes, however, these relatively few studies still tend to bypass the essential role of the followers. At the individual leader level of analysis, which includes the majority of studies, research tends to emphasize either leader “emergence” or reputed effectiveness. Leader emergence refers to whether an individual is viewed as leader-like or as having potential as a leader (“This person acts and looks like a leader.”) This measure is often related to extraversion, dominance, and communication skills. A related perspective examines a person's perceived ...